STEM Lab Comes Alive at Saint John the Baptist School

Student representatives from each grade with school staff members, Mrs. Arlene Ang, Tilde Garcia (back row, far left), Father Ritche Bueza & School Principal, Christopher Brazil during the blessing of the lab.

What’s happening in the new STEM Lab at Saint John the Baptist School? Fourth grade students are re-creating California missions in a way that is utterly new to their school: designing them using Tinkercad and then using a 3-D printer to build everything from churches to fountains to livestock and more. Second graders are learning how to engineer structures like bridges and ferris wheels using K’Nex sets. Fifth graders are creating scale models of the school using a “lego wall.” Students in middle school will soon be building and coding their own robots.

The STEM Lab at Saint John the Baptist started the year as a computer lab in need of some updating. Due to the generosity and vision of parents and staff, the computer lab was transformed in just a few months into a center for exploring, thinking, creating, and problem-solving in multiple disciplines. During Catholic Schools Week, parents and visitors were able to see the completed STEM Lab for the first time, and the lab was blessed by Rev. Ritche Bueza, on Wednesday, February 1. Teachers can use the lab space with their classes as well as check out some of the wide variety of equipment and materials for use in their classrooms. For the students, the lab is proving to be an exciting place to learn, and it will add great support to the science curriculum when the Next Generation Science Standards become the norm for the next school year.